A BOY’S SUCCESS

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 70, 15 December 1928, Page 9

A BOY’S SUCCESS

NOT JUDGED BY EXAMINATIONS MATTER OF DEVELOPMENT “It is unwise of parents to measure, ii boy’s success by an examination certificate, as not all boys develop precisely at the same time, nor at the time set down by schedule according to age. Hence not all boys will have examination results to show at the end of two or three years.” So said Father B. J. Ryan, rector of St. Patrick’s College, at the annual prizegiving ceremony last night. “I am not going, to launch into an attack bn the examination system,” continued Father Ryan. “Maybe examinations serve some useful purpose, though by no means the most important, and in passing, one may remark that educational practice is gradually coming to recognise that examinations are not the most important test of education, nor an indication of success in life. The most enlightened headmasters are decided on the relative unimportance of examinations as a test. This educational practice, it is good to note, is in accord with the best traditions of Catholic practice. May we never forget it. What I wanted to say, especially is this: many boys wifi leave school without a certificate. Two reasons may account for this —the boy’s gifts would not fit into a schedule. I have in mind an old boy of this college, first Doctor of Philosophy of Oxford, Doctor of Science of London, Professor of T.C. Dublin, a world’s authority on cytology. 1 doubt if he would ever have fitted into a schedule educational system. Yet he grew up here. He was allowed to develop naturally. He has brought honour to New Zealand.

“The other reason is also most important, development for some comes later than for others. This is the experience of all educators. Does the school fail, therefore, with such a boy? Decidedly no. For the purpose of education is this—to open the boy’s mind, be it ever so little, to knowledge—to show him where to find it, how to find it; to teach him to admire it. to want it, not to hate it, as part of an examination syllabus; to place in his hands the golden key wherewith he may open the palaces of the particular form of knowledge he wants later, when he understands life.”